soil

Less common meanings

5. 5
   harm reputationverbfigurativelytransitive

   To stain or damage someone's reputation, honor, or good name.

   The bribery charges soiled the senator's reputation.

   One betrayal can soil a lifetime of honest work.

   Similartarnish, sully, stain, taint, besmirch

   Note

   The figurative stain falls on a name rather than a sleeve. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, foreign talk of Danes as drunkards, "with swinish phrase", is said to "soil our addition" and take the pith from their achievements. What gets dirtied is a title or standing. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
   • Hamlet says other nations call the Danes drunkards and uses the quoted phrases. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
   • The speech says this takes the pith from their achievements. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
   • The figurative object is their name or standing. en.wikisource.org
6. 6
   mess yourselfverbreflexivetransitive

   To dirty one's clothing by accidentally defecating while still dressed.

   The frightened toddler soiled himself before reaching the bathroom.

   Some patients soil themselves when the illness affects their control.

   UsageUsed with a -self word: soil yourself, soiled himself. It names the accident politely, without saying it.

   Similarfoul

7. 7
   body wastenouneuphemisticuncountable

   Feces or urine found on clothing or bedding.

   Linens with bodily soil, such as urine or feces, are bagged separately so the laundry can disinfect them.

   Because he is bedridden, the nurses check his nightclothes every two hours for urine or fecal soil.

   UsageMostly in care and laundry settings, as soil on the sheets; the adjective is more common: soiled linen.

   Similarwaste, feces, excrement

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Dung, manure, or compost, especially as used to fertilize land.

   Before cities had sewers, night soil was carted out of town and spread on fields as fertilizer.

   Collectors emptied the town's privies before dawn and sold the night soil to nearby farms.

   UsageNow mostly in the compound night soil.

   Similarmanure, dung, muck, compost

   Note

   The farmyard sense now survives mainly in the compound night soil. Earlier it was ordinary farming vocabulary. John Mortimer's The Whole Art of Husbandry (1707) heads a chapter "Of Manuring, Dunging, and Soiling of Land", where soiling, spreading such dung, stands beside manuring and dunging. For the action of spreading it, see the verb "to manure".

9. 9
   verbobsolete

   To ruin something or render it no longer valid.
10. 10
    verbobsolete

    To enrich land by spreading dung or muck over it.
11. 11
    nounrare

    A bag for collecting soiled items, such as used linens or contaminated dressings.
12. 12
    nounarchaic

    A marshy place, stream, or stretch of water where a hunted boar, deer, or other game takes refuge.

    As Deere being ſtrucke flie thorow many ſoiles, / Yet ſtill the ſhaft ſitcks faſt, ſo ;

    1603, John Marston, John Webster
13. 13
    verbdated

    To feed cattle or horses on fresh-cut grass or green fodder in a barn or pen instead of turning them out to pasture, a diet that also serves to purge them.